Читать книгу John Carr - James Deegan, James Deegan - Страница 31

18.

A LITTLE OVER ONE hundred metres away, in the calfskin and mohair interior of the gleaming white Lucky Lady, four men sat in silence.

Tense, but focused.

One or two knees bouncing up and down on the deep-pile beige carpet with nervous energy.

They were all dressed like everyone else nearby, in shorts and T-shirts or vests, though they were wearing trainers rather than flip-flops.

The better for movement.

Each had at his feet a beach bag, and each bag contained an AKS-74U ‘Krinkov’, a lightweight, shortened version of the AK47, with a folding skeleton stock.

Each Krinkov had a magazine in place, and each man had five spare mags – a total of 720 rounds of 5.45mm-short death and destruction.

The dark-eyed Chechen called Argun Shishani sat on the steps to the upper deck.

He had a phone to his left ear, and a police radio, stolen three nights earlier, in his right hand.

He was talking to the young man in the cut-off denim shorts and the Manchester United shirt, who had moved down the beach a way but still had a good view.

‘I don’t care if two have left as long as the main target is still there,’ said Shishani. ‘She is? Good. Right, sixty seconds.’

He ended the call and looked at the four men. ‘Okay, boys,’ he said. ‘It’s on.’

He refreshed an iPad, on which was a single image – a woman, wearing a bikini, on the beach outside.

He tapped the tablet, and the four men took a final long look at the photograph.

‘You have seven minutes,’ said Shishani, ‘and no longer. Kill as many as you can, and bring me back my prize. And may Allah go with you.’

As they left, he followed them up and stood on the deck.

He watched the four men melt into the crowd, and briefly turned to look behind himself.

From his vantage point he could see clear out to sea.

It was a thin ribbon of serenity between the decadence of Europe and the very different lands of North Africa, lurking just over the blue horizon, with their violence, and turmoil, and poverty.

At least, that was how it appeared to the Westerners.

Argun Shishani’s lip curled in disgust.

These trivial, shallow people, splashing and playing in the shallows, and drinking themselves insensible in the nearby bars – they thought that that narrow, tranquil strip of water protected them from the rage.

But today it was an angry sea, and it had brought God’s wrath to these shores, and after the wrath was spent the sea would carry away His servants to safety.

Shishani smiled, and waited.